What is meant when we speak about rest? Perhaps it is not at all like what I now understand by this word. Relative to what is it rest or not rest? I remember when I was a child and constantly ran after a ball, everyone shouted at me: “Sit down, rest a little!”
But I did not feel that to sit down and stop was rest. On the contrary, for me that was a great effort. To run after the ball was both pleasant and comfortable.
So how can one measure and decide what is rest, repose, and what is exertion and work? This is measured relative to the Kelim. If the Kli feels tension and a mismatch between the desired and the actual, that is, between what ought to be and where the Kli in fact is, this means that the Kli is not in a state of rest. For the difference that it feels pushes it toward spiritual “movement,” and this automatically means that the Kli is not in rest.
And a Kli that has come to equivalence of qualities with the goal feels no difference from it and therefore can even while “in flight,” like a child running after a ball, feel rest.
The principle of relativity speaks of this as well. It is not important at what speed you are moving, but that you are neither accelerating or decelerating. That is, there is no lack “behind” and no lack “ahead” of you, you are balanced in the state you are in. And then this is felt as rest.
How does one reach this? By means of equivalence of form (qualities) with the environment, with the light in which we exist How can one come to equivalence of qualities with the light?
Baal HaSulam says that for this there are the written and the oral Torah. By means of one of them we acquire the intention to bestow, and by means of the other we know what to do with this intention. And when we acquire the ability to perform these two actions: to receive with the intention to bestow, to fulfill the commandments (spiritual actions for the sake of bestowal), then we attain the goal.
[358703]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/26, Rabash, “What Does, ‘Everything that Comes to Be a Burnt Offering Is Male,’ Mean in the Work?”
Related Material:
Absolute Rest in Infinite Motion
What Is Absolute Rest?
The Yearning For Rest



